In tragedy's wake I

We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

I am disappointed that some on staff at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium decided to continue distributing their 2013 calendar, which features African painted dogs, after Maddox Derkosh was horrifically mauled to death by them. While half of the calendars were distributed before this shocking incident, I do not think it was necessary to continue the distribution afterward.

What were they thinking? I realize those in the zoological community work tirelessly to protect and provide for species and to educate us about them. However, I cannot believe that these respected professionals weren't able to step into the shoes of the Derkosh family and see a bigger picture of hurt and disbelief that has touched our Pittsburgh community.

When they were discussing this decision, were they not able to think beyond the objectivity of animals and animal behavior and their professional duty to care for them? Not only do I not want to see the African painted dogs in the zoo calendar, I no longer want to see them at our zoo.

I can't imagine that there is one Pittsburgher who wants to visit our zoo in the near future and gaze upon the dogs in a new and improved exhibit. How can anyone look at them without remembering the horror of Maddox's death? Allow another zoo to care for them! Please be more sensitive about this tragedy.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.